Well well well well well, paint me red and call me a girly scout. I've been saying for months now that there's much more collaboration between Apple and Microsoft than their respective fanboys want to believe, especially when it comes to fighting Google and Android, which both companies partly do via patent suits. More evidence for this has emerged today. Remember CPTN Holdings, the consortium led by Microsoft which bought that bundle of patents from Novell? Which other companies are part of this consortium? EMC. Oracle. Apple.

which is why everyone copied them after they invented the personal mp3 player.. then copied them after they invented the smartphone.. not to mention copying them after they where first to invent the table form factor and netbook..

which is why everyone copied them after they invented the personal mp3 player.. then copied them after they invented the smartphone.. not to mention copying them after they where first to invent the table form factor and netbook..

most copied.. my ass

After the Mac all PCs ended up looking like a Mac. PCs didn't copy Xerox they copied Apple's product (i.e. the one that sold in quantity).

Apple invented the mp3 player that people wanted. If Apple had not got a patent protection on the click wheel all mp3 players would have click wheels.

After the iPhone other phones started to look like the iPhone. The Android changed its previous design for Android following the iPhone launch to look like the iPhone.

Yet.. in all those cases.. Apple copied someone else. The company is fantastic at designing products.

They are experts at looking at an existing market then delivering a refined product based on lessons from all the other existing products. Trying to cast them as the victim always copied from is a bit weak though.

Don’t tell me the iPhone has not completely reshaped the design and UI of smart phones

It hasn't. There is zero innovative about Apple. You've fallen under the RDF so prevalent around Steve Jobs.

Fact is that everything ever done by Apple ever merely being refined copies of the hard work done by others before them, hailing small modifications as major breakthroughs, new variations on existing technologies as turning points and so on. Apple is simply one big hyperbole. You also forget all the production problems with the iPhone and all the usability flaws - but they don't fit in your perfect Appleworld, do they?